Mothering Sunday may have been a little bit different for churches this year, but in a number of parishes around the diocese, the traditional gift of flowers were still given and gratefully received.
In Syston, the Fresh Expression eleven30 had been busy preparing for the Mothering Sunday service, which sadly couldn’t happen. The children had decorated around 80 flower pots, planted up with beautiful, brightly coloured geraniums for handing out to all the ladies in church.
There was no way these lovely gestures were going to waste. So the leaders of the church wheeled them in a trolley to Syston Post Office in the centre of town (where someone had already knitted a cosy for the post box) and left them outside for people to take home for themselves, or to pass on to others.
The sign, which explained where the flowers had come from, also read: ‘Plant it straight into the garden in its pot and watch it grow in coming weeks and months while life takes on a different pattern. As you watch it grow, and spring and summer happen, may they help us to be positive and thankful for signs of new life. This comes with love and prayers to you all on this Mothering Sunday from all of us.’
Member of the church, Jane Leonard, said: “By early evening, they had all gone. It was most definitely church done in a different way!”
It was a fantastic way to reach much wider out into the community and show love to all the mothers across the neighbourhood.
St Paul’s Church in Oadby also shared ‘church on the move’ by delivering pretty pot plants and postcards to members of their church community; while over in Evington, St Denys’ volunteers delivered more than 100 primulas and bouquets to its worshipping families.
{This story was written before the full lockdown. Please remember that with current Government guidelines on travel outside the home it is no longer permitted for churches to to make door-to-door deliveries of leaflets or other materials, and that it is no longer recommended that anything should be left for the public to pick up because of risk of transmission.}